Keep No Secrets, page 1
Charlie Lane
Keep No Secrets
A Steamy Regency Romance
Copyright © 2021 by Charlie Lane
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Charlie Lane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Charlie Lane has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
First edition
Editing by Krista Dapkey
Cover art by Holly Perret
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
Find out more at reedsy.com
To Brian. Here’s to another fourteen years together.
Contents
Acknowledgement
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Charlie Lane
Acknowledgement
Rachel Ann Smith, Krista Dapkey, and Holly Perret—you are perfection. Thank you, Rachel, for reading outlines as well as drafts and slogging through blurb writing with me even when you’re like WTF is going on in this? Thank you, Krista, for making my prose shine and laughing at the right spots in the book. Thank you, Holly, for redoing the beautiful first cover you created for Keep No Secrets and replacing it with the one more in my head. I am but a humble author in awe of your talents.
To my boys—big, small, and furry—you have my heart and my promise to color more often, go for more walks, and to make time to watch Discovery at night instead of typing away at my computer.
Prologue
London, 1795
The surgeon’s practice looked like every other house on the street, but Dolores knew better. Behind the unobtrusive brick façade, pain awaited. And disappointment. She flicked a glance at her father.
His body seemed a mass of jitters. His fingers and hands flitted between pockets and cravat and hair. One foot tapped on the sidewalk, and his face switched from delighted anticipation to worry and back again. “Lola, this is it. I can feel it. Dr. Thorn is the most esteemed man in the field. He’s completed countless of these operations.” His eyes shone like sunlight on snow. “You will be able to have a life after this.”
Her chest twisted. She already had a life, had been living it, in fact, for twenty-one years. It was a small life, yes, but a happy one. Or at least content. Or at least … well … she kept herself busy. “Yes, Papa.”
He smiled rapturously at her and she gripped his arm tighter. She hated it when he fidgeted so. She could not keep her balance. And since he would not let her use a cane, she had no option but to lean on him. She swallowed a sigh as the door opened and her father dragged her forward.
A servant dressed head to toe in black, but for a stark-white apron, stood in the door’s frame. “Viscount Trembly.” He bowed low. “Dr. Thorn is waiting for you.”
Papa pulled Lola through the door, and they both followed the servant down the hall. Papa, as usual, moved too quickly for Lola, and the awkward shuffle he forced her into ached her foot, her leg, all the way up to her hip. She grit her teeth and bore the pain as she always did—silently. If Papa was correct and the doctor could fix her foot, her life, small and busy, would soon be pain free as well. The prospect should have put a determined speed to her steps, but something dark churned in her stomach. It felt very much like dread.
“Papa,” she whispered. “I don’t think I need to meet with the doctor. I’m fine the way I am. Honestly, I am.”
“Do not be absurd, Lola. You know we love you, but … do you want a season like your sister? Do you want to marry and bear children?”
Her gut clenched further. She nodded, closing her eyes tight. She did want those things. She truly did.
“Then you must undergo the procedure. We must finally fix your foot for good.”
Lola took a steadying breath and opened her eyes, trained them on the door growing in the distance and the servant opening it ahead of them. Another man stood, waiting, in the newly revealed room. As she moved into it on her father’s arm, her dread lessened a bit. A fire crackled in the grate, comfortable-looking furniture scattered throughout the room like a parlor, and the doctor smiled warmly. He looked grandfatherly. Perhaps she could do this.
But then the doctor spoke and her skin crawled. “Lord Trembly,” he said, his words clipped and sharp like blades, “have a seat. Let me examine the foot.”
She sat. He knelt and yanked her skirt above her ankle. “Hold,” he commanded.
“Me?” she inquired.
“Who else? Yes, you.”
She gripped the hem of her skirt with trembling fingers as he grasped her ankle. “Ah!” She slammed her eyes closed and bit her scream off as he yanked her twisted ankle into as straight a position as he could manage.
“Tsk-tsk.” He pulled her other ankle forward and compared the two. “Not good at all. It’s tight. Too tight. Your letters say she’s been braced?”
Papa nodded. “Almost her entire childhood.”
“Not still?” Dr. Thorn’s face grew disapproving.
“No. She began to refuse to wear the brace around thirteen years of age.”
Dr. Thorn shook his head solemnly. “Too soon.” He dropped her foot to the floor and rose with a groan. “Had she been braced during the most formative of her growing years, perhaps she would not be so badly twisted now.”
Lola bit her lips and hung her head. She hated this part, where they spoke about her as if she wasn’t there. She wanted to jump from the sofa and run from the room but could not. She’d need her father’s arm to get anywhere.
“We’ve seen other doctors,” her father said, “tried other treatments, but—”
“Bah.” Dr. Thorn lifted his chin and puffed out his chest. “I am the only one who can cure her.”
Papa bounded forward, excitement animating his movements. “I’ve read all about it. The surgeries in Germany.”
The doctor smiled his warm, grandfatherly smile. “A little cut and it’s all fixed.”
Lola imagined the blade slicing through her skin and shivered.
Her father clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Excellent, excellent! When can we begin? Now?”
Lola sat up straight, eyes wide. “Now? But no! We can’t!” She didn’t know why now would not work. She had no obligations. She only knew the idea left her cold, terrified to the bone.
“No, no,” the doctor said. “Not now. Today is not possible. Next week.”
Lola shook her head, trying to cut through her growing dread to do something, say anything. “I … Dr. Thorn, I’ve read the same publications as my father, but the one thing I could never figure out was how often this surgery is successful.”
Both men turned baffled gazes her way. Her father blinked.
Dr. Thorn scowled. “Always. I cut the tendon in the back of the leg, releasing the pressure. The leg is always straightened afterward. You will need braces again, likely, and there will be exercises.”
She shook her head almost violently. She’d done it all—braces, exercises, oils, and potions. Now they would cut her? Sweat broke out behind her ear and trickled down her neck. “Yes, but can your patients walk without an aid? After?”
The doctor’s lips pressed together.
Papa turned curious eyes toward Dr. Thorn. “I assume that’s the case, yes, Doctor?”
Dr. Thorn waved his hand in the air. “There have been cases where the leg has been unusable afterward. The patients lost all sensation in the lower extremity after the cut.”
The dread she’d been feeling solidified, took root, and curled into every nerve, nook, and cranny of her body. She tried not to let her growing dread show. “But every patient has survived? I did not see a mortality report attached to the findings, either.”
The doctor’s face froze, yet his lips somehow shaped words. “Three have died. Bled out. You see, I do not seek to trick you. I’ll tell you all before you decide.”
Three dead. She could not shake the dread now. It morphed into outright fear skittering across her skin li
“Of course, we’ll do the surgery,” her father said.
“How many”—Lola swallowed—“how many, total, have you operated on?”
“Fifteen.”
The doctor’s answer added up to bad math and Lola’s fears, adepts at figure, multiplied. Possibly six of fifteen patients had died or been left worse than before by Dr. Thorn’s surgery. Lola stood, putting most of her weight on one side of her body. Determined to leave on her own, she did not wrap her arms around her waist as she wished to do, in protection, but kept them out to the side for balance should she need them. “No.” She took a step on her own toward the door. It was awkward, but she often walked on her own when alone in a room. Not long trips, but enough to know she could make it back into the street. “No, no. I’m sorry, but I can’t—”
“Do not have hysterics, little girl,” the doctor barked.
Her father gripped her arm. “Lola, do not be unreasonable.” He turned to the doctor. “Schedule the surgery for next week. Any time. As soon as possible.”
The doctor nodded. “It is the right decision.”
Her father dragged her toward the door. His hands pressed her roughly to his side so he almost carried her out the door and up into the waiting carriage. He placed her on one side and took the facing seat. He looked out the window as the carriage lurched into movement. Trying to master his temper, he breathed hard and fast for several minutes until the rise and fall of his chest slowed. “Lola,” he said gently, then, turning to her, “this is what is best for you.”
“I do not want it, Papa.”
“Do you wish to live at home the rest of your life, childless and alone?”
She tried not to feel hurt by his unsaid assertion—as she was, no one would want her. “I’ll have you and Mama. I’ll be able to care for you and Mama. And when Patricia has children, I can love them.”
“And how will you play with them?”
She winced, but lifted her chin, determined. “I will read to them and teach them how to draw and play instruments.”
“Neither of which you can do yourself with overmuch skill.”
“I’ll learn to do better.” She turned to look out the window. The rolling green of Hyde Park came into view.
She heard the creak of the carriage seat as her father’s warmth settled beside her. He took both her shoulders in his hands and turned her face to his. “Dolores.”
She winced at the use of her full name.
“I love you. I admire your spirit. I understand how difficult and scary this must seem, but it is for the best. And it is going to happen. You will let Dr. Thorn perform the surgery.”
“But what about the six he could not help? Half of his patients have experienced … an undesirable outcome. A quarter of them have died.”
“Anything worthwhile has its risks.”
“You would rather have me dead with a straight leg than alive with a twisted one?”
He opened his mouth, closed it again. He looked away from her for a long moment. When he turned back, his jaw was set. “That is not at all what I said. You will let the doctor perform the surgery. And”—he smoothed a lock of hair away from her face—“you will live. And you will be better than before.”
She hung her head. There would be no escape. She could only pray to God she wouldn’t add to the doctor’s undesirable statistics. She turned back to the window. Sun shone on the perfectly manicured lawns of the park, yellow on green, the colors of life. “Stop.”
Her father frowned at her.
“Stop please. I would like to sit in the park a bit. Home is not far, Papa. Perhaps you could walk. It’s such a lovely day. And you could leave the carriage for me.”
“You have no chaperone.”
“I never do, except maybe a groom or maid. You know I speak truth. I’m not Patricia.”
He nodded, and his accession hurt. Patricia, a perfectly straight-limbed beauty needed an army of chaperones to keep her safe. Lola, with her freckles and red hair and twisted ankle, did not.
“Yes, Lola. If you need time to realize how wonderful an opportunity this is, you may have it.” He rapped on the carriage roof and it rolled to a stop. They alighted together. “Charles,” he told the driver, “keep an eye on Miss Crawford and give her a hand if she needs it. I’ll walk the rest of the way home.”
Lola watched her father disappear down the street, then turned to Charles. “No use you holding up traffic here. Circle the park a time or two. I’ll sit right here. Promise.” She pointed to a bench nearby.
He nodded, then shook the reins and nudged the pair of bays forward. No one questioned leaving her alone in the middle of a park. No one thought her desirable enough to have to defend her virtue.
She squashed the wave of sadness threatening to rock her. Surely she should celebrate her undesirability! If she were more desirable, she’d have less freedom. She made her way carefully toward the bench and sank onto its seat. She lifted her foot and studied her ankle. If her foot were better, she’d have more freedom. Wouldn’t she? The surgery could kill her. Or it could transform her life, transform her.
“Drover is a damned fool! Reshape the Serpentine? By Jove, what an addlepated idea!”
Lola lifted her head to find the source of the agitated voice. A man paced near the Serpentine, a sketchbook in one hand and a paper of some sort in the other. He looked back and forth between the two with occasional bewildered glances at the man-made river snaking through the landscape before him.
“Pardon me?” Lola raised her voice enough for him to hear from a distance.
He turned. His thick dark hair looked as if a storm had blown it about and his mouth hung open as he recognized he was not alone. He closed the sketchbook and strode toward her, as if he had a life-or-death mission to accomplish, and she was it. As he neared, she blushed. My, what a very handsome man. Dark eyebrows raised animatedly over stormy hazel eyes, and his sensuous mouth set at a determined angle. High cheekbones gave him a refined look, despite the wild appearance of his hair and, frankly, his apparel.
“Is something amiss?” Lola asked as he neared. “With the Serpentine?”
He stopped directly before her and blinked several times as he stared fully into her face. “Not at all.” He grimaced and lifted the paper he held in one hand. “The Serpentine’s perfection is the reason this”—he shook the paper wildly—“is a problem.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” He turned abruptly and sat next to her on the bench. “William Drover, supposed acclaimed landscape architect, writes here, ahem”—he shook the paper, held it up, and fixed his eyes to a particular spot on it—“‘The current mania for shaping the landscape as if it had occurred through the natural process of time is wrongheaded and, may I be so bold, dangerous. Man cannot create as God does, and so should not try to do so. The Serpentine, for example, should present a geometrical reflection on man’s scientific progress, his ability to impose on the natural world. That it runs unruly through the Royal parks, snaking this way and that like a simple country stream, screams hubris to the heavens. Men are not gods, so their rivers should not be like those created by divinity.’” He dropped the high-pitched sneering tone he’d used to read the paper aloud and shook his head slowly at Lola, eyes wide in disbelief. He crumpled the paper and stuffed it into a pocket.
She could not take her eyes off him. Every inch of him vibrated with passion. It rolled off him like a scent. Speaking of scent, he smelled of soil and flowers, and she could not help but breathe in the earthiness of him and smile at his passion.
“Men,” he continued, holding his palms up as if offering Lola the source of all meaning in the universe between his big, browned hands. Had she ever found hands so impossibly attractive before? “Men come from the divine, too. What better way to celebrate our origin than to make our art in His image, as He made us?”
He dropped his hands to his lap with a satisfied huff. His eyes locked on hers, as if he saw her, truly saw her, for the first time. A shy smile spread slowly across his face. “God, you’re stunning.”
The force of his words almost blew a hole through her chest. They left her breathless and confused. She laughed, a hard bark that morphed into an uncontrollable deluge. She wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked with her mirth. She appeared a very madwoman, she knew, but she could not help it. The stress of the day collapsed in on her and came out in laughter instead of tears.
